By Elliott Brack, editor and publisher
JAN. 23, 2026 | It was for J.K. Murphy a great way to start a recent commentary. Murphy is a fellow newspaperman and publisher of the Gwinnett Daily Post, who lives in Lawrenceville.
He started his recent column by saying: “The thought had never crossed my mind.”
You see, Murphy is a native of Indiana, a graduate (1980) of Indiana University, and got his first newspaper job in Indiana before landing at the Gwinnett Daily Post in 1998.
He was writing about his alma mater’s 2026 football season, winning the college championship and having an undefeated 16-0 perfect season.
Let’s pick up the story in excerpt from JK himself:
The thought had never crossed my mind.
The Indiana University Hoosiers are national champions … in FOOTBALL!
This just could be the Cinderella story of all Cinderella stories. The losingest team in college football, the team that posted more losses than wins in 82 of the last 126 years, the team that hadn’t won its conference for nearly 60 years is, let me repeat, national champions.
To say that, for generations, Hoosier fans kept expectations low for IU football is an understatement.
Let me be clear. National champions are common on the IU campus, but in other sports — soccer, swimming, track and most notably, basketball.
Five times, the IU men’s basketball team reached the pinnacle — 1940, ’53, ’76, ’81, ’87 — and my four years on the Bloomington campus were at the heart of the Bob Knight-led heyday of Indiana basketball.
They won it all in 1976 (to this day, the last men’s college hoops squad to go undefeated through the season and NCAA Tournament — 32-0).
The (football) turnaround began with the arrival of coach Curt Cignetti.
Consider that the Hoosiers couldn’t muster more than four wins in any of the three seasons prior to Cignetti’s arrival.
Last year, Cignetti’s first, the Hoosiers went 11-2 — the first 11-win season in IU history. He followed that with this year’s perfect season and the championship, making his record at IU 27-2.
Luckily, the Rose Bowl win advanced the Hoosiers to Atlanta’s Peach Bowl. With Indiana in the semifinals just down the road, I had to be there.
After monitoring ticket prices daily, an email popped into my inbox. A colleague from the Kiwanis Club of Marietta just happened to have a couple of extra tickets to the IU-Oregon matchup and “wanted to offer them to you since I remembered you were an Indiana alumnus.”
Membership does have its privileges.
My IU roommate made the trek from Indianapolis and we hit downtown Atlanta about six hours before the Peach Bowl kickoff. Hudson Grille on Marietta Street was a sea of red, with nary a Duck in sight. FanFest at the Georgia World Congress Center had only a smattering of green. The same was true at game time inside Mercedes-Benz — 90 percent red with a mere three sections in the corner showing green.
I doubt that stadium had ever been louder than when, on the first play from scrimmage, IU tallied a pick-six. The Hoosiers went on to dominate Oregon with a 56-22 win.
Which brings us to Monday. It was a home game for the Hurricanes, but IU faithful still filled the stands and watched their team beat Miami 27-21.
Indiana is and always will be remembered as a basketball school, but now there’s something else to cheer about. For lifelong Hoosiers, it remains a bit difficult to fathom.
The Indiana University Hoosiers are national champions … in FOOTBALL!”
So, we’re happy for J.K. Murphy and all our local Indianans!
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